Radiation detection and acquisition systems have had many applications. Many such systems are characterized by a radiation detector probe employed at a radiation detection site and electrically coupled to a probe output signal processing unit commonly referred to as a nuclear instrumentation module. One common type of detector probe is based on a scintillator crystal combined with a photo-multiplier tube. The scintillator crystal converts impinging invisible radiation to bursts of visible light which are converted by the photo-multiplier tube to electrical analog signals. The radiation involved may be gamma rays, X-rays, high energy or thermal neutrons, etc.
Heretofore, the scintillator crystal and photo-multiplier tube were packaged in a common housing for positioning and mounting at the detection site. The analog output of the photo-multiplier tube would be line coupled to the usually remotely located nuclear instrumentation module which processed the analog output of the photo-multiplier tube so as to provide, for example, pulse count data to an associated display or system controller.
One problem with this prior system was that the nuclear instrumentation module had to be located relatively close to the detector probe to avoid loss of signal integrity resulting from induced line noise, line losses, etc. Also, the nuclear instrumentation modules could not be used universally with different detector probes operative to sense respective types of radiation. Instead, a specific instrumentation module had to be used for each radiation type detector probe. Moreover, the output of such system was not as reproduceable or repeatable as might be desired in some applications leading to larger margins of error or reduced reliability.
Still another problem was the variance in outputs from detector probe to detector probe. This necessitated tedious and time consuming calibration of the nuclear instrumentation modules to gain matching data output under identical radiation conditions. Many times a good match could not be obtained because of substantial variance in the detector probes and calibration limitations of the nuclear instrumentation modules.
Such systems also required a separate nuclear instrumentation module for each detector probe in multiple channel systems. In addition to being costly, large control panels were required to house the nuclear instrumentation modules and associated equipment such as pulse count rate displays.